


and its doorsteps were tumbling down, and its back door that always was shut

by Anonymous



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Adult Content, Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Character Study, Dubious Consent, M/M, Original Character(s), Pre-Canon, Pregnancy, Slow Burn, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22024354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “That seems awfully specific,” his dad says, accepting the mug from his wife’s hands and taking a sip. No cream, no sugar. Men don’t drink their coffee like that. “’Til your what?”There’s no point in trying to hide it. His mom might be polite about it for a while before starting to needle, but dad’s an ox. Whenever he sees something he thinks is weird, he goes bulldozing right the fuck through it. Spots on crops, lethargic animals, something resembling a water stain in the bathroom, daughters who scream and cry when it comes time to put on the Sunday best. He won’t be able to hide this for a year, either, the way his stomach’s gonna pop outward like a balloon.-Cassius Terhi goes home with nothing to do but sit on his thumbs and wait for the father of his child to finish his service. Maybe it would be less complicated if his future kid's dad wasn't, say, his superior officer. Maybe it would be less complicated if a lot of things.-I didn't really like Death Stranding, but since I watched all 11 hrs of cutscenes I figured I should go ahead and do something with the character concept I made for it. Alternate universe where Sam's other parent is Cliff Unger's (trans) subordinate Cassius.
Relationships: Clifford Unger/Original Male Character
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23
Collections: anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know anything about the military or about rural living, so a lot of that is glossed over or made up. My bad. It's also a weird alternate universe because I was more interested in exploring my own character than I was in DS's wordbuilding or storytelling. That being said, this mostly focuses on original characters than it does on canon, with a couple of references to the main plot sprinkled in.
> 
> Dubious consent tag because Cliff is Cass' superior officer.

Cassius is lucky. When he misses his period, he’s close to the end of his tour.

He makes sure to tell all his bunkmates that he won’t be coming back and he won’t fucking miss any of them either, and also that he hopes they choke. Hill, surprisingly enough, is stricken. He follows Cass around, asking for help with drills and commanding his meals at the mess. He asks Cassius to write to him.

“We can be pen pals,” he beams, and Cassius has to glare over his shoulder at Palmer who is snickering into his palm.

“Sure, Hill,” Cass agrees, because he’s not a heartless bag of dicks. He might even do it, too.

The captain has a rope around his neck for the next couple of years, so he’ll be off to battle while Cass languishes at home, bored. Not alone, though, never alone. Cliff made sure of that.

Speaking of the captain and home, the bastard’s made it clear that he intends Cassius to move in with him when this is all said and done. He’ll make an honest man of Cass, get him a pretty l’il ring to slip onto his left hand so the neighbors and the churchgoers don’t spit at him as he passes them… or something. He’ll have to play nice with all the middle-class fuckers Cliff’s made his circle out of, outside the military. He’ll probably join some bullshit mommy group over the Chiral Network.

That’s not happening quite yet, though. It’ll have to happen whenever Cliff gets leave, show Cass around the place and give him his very own key and maybe a goddamn stroller too. He’ll show him where the kitchen and the master bedroom are, too. Whoopie.

For now, Cass has made it clear he wants to go home. To the farm.

His childhood bedroom is still there. His ma said so when she penned, though she’s admitted to stacking shit in the corners. That’s fine, it’s a place to sleep, and his digs in the military are way worse.

“I’ll be by your side soon,” Cliff tries to soothe him, the night before he hauls out of this bullshit job for good. “I’ll take you home. Take care of you.”

Cass grunts, tucks his head under Captain Unger’s chin, and doesn’t answer besides: “You better not die, asshole.” He doesn’t have enough space in him for vitriol. He’s too tired, and all his energy is being reserved for the life trying to take root in his body, how he’s gonna explain it to everybody back home.

Cliff must sense his impending mood, because he circles his arms around Cass’ waist and murmurs sweet nothings into the scruff of his clipped hair. Cass should have been in his bunk thirty minutes ago, damn it, but it’s been easier to excuse the stolen moments when he’s not going to be around much longer. It doesn’t matter to him if it’s suspicious anymore. He should get this, he deserves this, laying back to chest with the father of his as yet unnamed kid, no bigger than a bean right now.

The next morning, he’s on a plane, en route to home.

By the next evening, sun starting to settle low and dim under the line of the horizon, he’s rapping his scarred knuckles on the door of the farmhouse.

His mom answers, looking the same as ever except maybe with more wrinkles and hair equal parts gray and brown now. She bursts into tears when she sees him on her porch, throws her arms around him and squeezes him too tight to her heart. He hugs her back, makes sure she isn’t actually putting any pressure on his belly. He doesn’t know if that would hurt the Bean. He’s never done this before… but she would know.

Cass is only one of three. She leads him into the kitchen, sets him up at the kitchen table, talking about how they’ve been doing and she’ll have to invite them over for dinner to see him now that he’s home. She birthed and raised them all in turn, and she’d know all about home remedies for swollen ankles, the right temperature for a hot water bottle, how to know that his Bean is healthy inside of him, what to expect from doctor’s visits, what to do if Cliff isn’t home by then and Bean won’t stop crying…

“Coffee, hon?” she asks, reaching for the can where she keeps the beans she’s spent years grinding by hand.

“No thanks, ma,” he says awkwardly. “’Precciate it though.”

She frowns. Cass has been swallowing coffee by the pot since he was old enough for them to let him drink it. Then she softens, a look of sentimental melancholy settling over her face, in her eyes. God, Cass got so much from her, up to and including that sad misty gray color.

“They ration it that bad in the army, Cass?”

“No, ma, I just— some other time, yeah?”

She nods, looking unsure, but offers him his choice of anything else to drink. Cass goes for orange juice, knows it’s the good shit from Drew in the next town over. He sells that shit by the gallon, the fruit grown fresh in his orchard, heavy with pulp and sweet as sin. It’s real, and it’s good, and it’ll be good for him. Good for Bean.

Then she goes off to get Cass’ dad.

“He’ll be so glad to see you,” she says, and it reminds Cassius that she’s still naïve in some ways. Blissfully ignorant, at least. She’s prayed so long and so hard that she really thinks it’s enough to hold the family together, just cuz she wants it to.

He waits, and he drinks, and he sweats. He might have to just get his clothes and go. Maybe he can do it while his ma is still out of the room, trying to pull dad away from whatever dumb bullshit he’s doing right now, or— no, nevermind. They’re here.

“Hey, pops,” Cass says, choked up and awkward. Maybe he could still dash past them and out of the front door. Maybe he could escape through the kitchen windows, or melt into a puddle and slip through the cracks between the floorboards. Maybe he could just drop dead right here and now and avoid it all altogether.

“You look like shit,” his father says in lieu of a greeting. “Would it have killed you to shave before comin’ to see your ma?”

Cass blinks, taken aback.

“Didn’t have time,” he says, a partial lie. Sure, he could have done it in that half hour when he should have been with his bunkmates and instead laid up against the captain’s broad chest, but he’d still have shown up with 5 o’clock on his chin. Maybe he’s a little scruffier than usual, but not that much.

His dad rolls his eyes. “Make an effort next time, huh?”

“Daniel, stop it,” his mom says, slapping his shoulder. “He just got back from service.”

“I’m just saying, Bon!”

She looks like she’s about to continue, a warming spike of protectiveness. Cass interjects, “It’s okay, ma. He didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Sure he did, and they all know it. Cass isn’t really offended, though. He assumes that his father figures that military service makes him a real man now, worthy of sitting at their kitchen table looking like unshaven hell now that he’s proved himself. He’d rather be criticized like this. He used to wish he was criticized like this, listening with bitter jealousy from his bedroom as his father told his brothers to clean up their damn faces before breakfast while Cass stuck toilet paper to the bleeding cuts on his jaw. Shit like that happens when you have to teach yourself to shave.

His mom doesn’t look convinced, but he offers her a watery smile. He’s gonna fuck this up, isn’t he? He’s gonna fuck all this up. They’re finally proud of him, finally proud of their son, and he’s gonna pull the rug out from under ‘em.

His dad sits down in his usual seat at the table and goes to make coffee for the two of them, instead. He looks critically at Cass’ glass of juice, raising a brow in demand of an answer that Cass keeps tight-lipped about.

“Are you gonna be staying with us?” his mom cuts through, before either of them can ramp up the silence into an argument. “Your old bedroom’s still available, honey.”

“Just for a while,” Cass grunts. “’Til my, uh… just for a couple years, tops. If that’s okay. I can get a job out in town, pay rent.”

“That seems awfully specific,” his dad says, accepting the mug from his wife’s hands and taking a sip. No cream, no sugar. Men don’t drink their coffee like that. “’Til your what?”

There’s no point in trying to hide it. His mom might be polite about it for a while before starting to needle, but dad’s an ox. Whenever he sees something he thinks is weird, he goes bulldozing right the fuck through it. Spots on crops, lethargic animals, something resembling a water stain in the bathroom, daughters who scream and cry when it comes time to put on the Sunday best. He won’t be able to hide this for a year, either, the way his stomach’s gonna pop outward like a balloon.

The sooner the better.

“I got knocked up,” he says, plain as you please. Utilitarian, just like any good piece of equipment on a farm should be. Simplest is best. “The daddy’s gonna be off tour in nineteen months, give or take, and he’s coming in on leave in something like four to put a ring on it.”

The color drains out of his mother’s face and his dad’s jaw sets with white hot shock, rage. He grips the ceramic as tight as he can without shattering it into pieces, boiling hot coffee and cutting shards going everywhere. Cass stares at the way his fingers tense and release on it, blank, standing just to the left of his own shoulder and peering into the situation like it’s a drama movie on TV.

“You…” his mother says, opening and closing her mouth like a screen door in a tornado. “I… you… you’re…”

His dad takes a different approach, one Cass isn’t expecting.

“Were you forced?”

Cass grinds his back teeth, a bad habit he never was able to shake. It’s a fair enough question, especially with the way his dad probably never stopped seeing him—the delicate flower in Bonnie’s image, her iron-brown hair and the eyes he fell in love with back when he was a farmhand for her own daddy. He never forgave Cass for making her cry when he told them she wasn’t gonna pass her wedding dress on to any of her kids.

Still, he’s posed a question. When he glances at his mom, he sees it written on her face as plain as day and unable to put voice to.

“No,” he says. Keep it simple, stupid. He knows that if his dad knew any of the specifics, he’d disagree. His mom, too, as well as everyone he served with. Hill would be horrified, and he can already imagine the look on Palmer’s face if he knew his bitchy jokes were a little more rooted in reality than he’d be comfortable with.

But nobody knows, yet. If Cliff is half as honorable as he tries to purport himself to be, he’s gonna be out of the army by the time anybody really realizes what happened, even with their signatures on a courthouse document. Nobody’s gonna look closely enough at it before it’s too late to do anything. Even then, Cliff’s own higher ups will probably let Cass sweep it under the rug the way he’s determined to. They’ll look less bad if they don’t get too dogged.

But Cass is a bad liar. He’s always been, even by omission.

His dad doesn’t believe him, eyes sharpening down to shards of… something. Anger, maybe, or pain. Regret might be in the mix, but Cass isn’t sure what for. He probably doesn’t want to know, either way.

“How do you know,” he starts slowly, trying to keep calm, “that he’s really gonna take the leave and marry you?” He says it like he’s talking to a dangerous animal. It might be Cass, but it might be him, too.

Cass shuts his eyes. Just like that, all his insecurities are laid bare right there on the kitchen table next to his father’s coffee and his own half-drunk orange juice. He’d almost rather stand up and gut himself with the knife he used to keep in his boot, intestines staining wood and tile. It would be less personal that way, at least.  
The thing is, he’s not sure. Cliff did his best to assure Cass he wouldn’t leave him high and dry, talked to Cass about the pretty house they were gonna live in. A garden he could grow flowers in, space for their kids to tumble on the grass. A big window in their bedroom, and best of all, a real bed to fuck him in. He said all of this with a hand on Cass’s belly. He whispered to Cass about how they were gonna have to go to a courthouse for the initial document, but once they were out he’d give Cass a real ceremony, pull out all the stops. He talked about how after this, they could think about a second and a third.

“I don’t know,” Cass tells his father.

When he’s able to look up at his parents again, he’s expecting to see disappointment, but all he sees is hollow sadness in his dad’s cheeks, sunken and full of shadows in the waning light of the kitchen. He looks so old all of the sudden, so sad.

He’s probably disappointed. Cass, the family fuckup, finally does something right. Then he fucks up all over again and comes to their doorstep, begging for help.  
Suddenly, he regrets the orange juice. There’s so much acid in his gut he swears it’s gonna burn a hole straight through him. He vaguely hopes it wont hurt Bean any, though he knows that realistically that’s not likely. Pregnant people get sick all the time and their babies come out fine.

“Well,” his mom warbles, voice high-strung and unsteady, “you know you’re always welcome here. Right, Daniel?”

“Right,” his father agrees emptily, retreating further into himself with his shame until he looks like a loose bedsheet on a coat rack.  
Cass knows they’re lying. They have to be lying. But he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

—

He goes to town and has a job within the week, a grocery store clerk ringing vegetables and bread and milk through a scanner for eight hours a day. It’s hell on his ankles already, and he finds himself just barely holding back his temper at the long line of morons who like to come up and treat him like shit, grinding him under their heels while he bags their crap for them. At least when it was the captain’s heel, it usually meant getting fucked soon after.

He writes Cliff at the end of every week, licking the envelopes closed, pressing a stamp onto the righthand corners, and walking them out to the mailbox. None of them get a reply.

His father doesn’t make himself abundant the first month, works from the asscrack of dawn until dusk, and his mother never knows what to say to him when the two of them sit down to dinner. Cass lets them be, lets them process the information on their own pace, spends a lot of time in his childhood bedroom reading and going through his old stuff. He boxes the shit that doesn’t fit him anymore, his body padded with muscle and fat from the testosterone, the hard labor of a military career. He tosses the old schoolwork he never got around to sorting through, a steady line of Cs and Ds from freshman to senior year. The shit he wants to keep fits in the canvas bag he came home with, a touch of his old life when (if) Cliff comes home to marry him like he promised.

He wonders if Cliff will appreciate that specific brand of backwater kitsch.

“Hey, ma,” he says one morning, a Tuesday he hasn’t been scheduled. He let himself sleep in and comes down to his mother washing dishes from the breakfast she presumably shared with Cass’ dad. “Lemme help with that.”

She gives him a pinched smile. “Don’t worry about it, honey, I’ve got it. There’s some bacon and scrambled eggs on the counter, if you’re hungry.”

He’s starving. Bean’s gonna have an appetite from Hell when it’s born.

“Sure, in a second. Lemme dry ‘em for you.”

He takes the rag, unchanged since he was a kid himself, and starts wiping off the plates and cups, the big cast iron pan. His mother looks like she wants to protest, but finally relaxes and starts passing each piece off to him proper as she soaps and rinses them. A fork, another plate, a splatula, a mug stained from coffee, another fork, a knife. It’s easy to get into the rhythm, an echo from… before, times he doesn’t always care to remember.

“It’s good to have you home,” she finally says. When Cass looks at her, the light coming in from the window makes her look a little more alive than she’s seemed in days.

“You don’t gotta lie, mom,” he says with a pinched frown. When she opens her mouth to reassure him, he adds, “You and dad can barely even look at me.”

Cass has always been praised for his eyes. He was told they looked like molten silver, expressive as all get out, a spitting image of his mom’s. His dad always said he knew that Bonnie was the woman he was gonna marry when he saw her eyes, said he could pinpoint the exact moment she fell for him back.

Now, they darken in sadness. Mist instead of silver.

“It’s been hard,” she admits. “But good. Your father’s proud of you, honey. He knows you’re lying about… not being taken advantage of. He doesn’t think you should marry your… what was he, a teammate?”

“Something like that,” Cass says. “I promise he didn’t take advantage. I’d have clawed his eyes out if he tried, mama. Don’t worry.”

“Always a little spitfire,” she sighs, a note of fondness that makes his chest lurch with pain. He didn’t realize he’d been missing it so bad.

His thoughts turn back to Cliff, specifics instead of abstracts. Cliff loved to call him a little firecracker of a thing, especially when Cass fucked him in his tent and pretended he didn’t love it. He wonders, yet again, if Cliff is gonna come back like he promised. He wonders if Cliff fell for his eyes, if he knew the exact moment that Cass really started adoring him past the horizon of following his commanding officer and getting regular cock on the side.

“Hey,” Cass says. “Will you teach me to make that lasagna? Y’know, the sh— the stuff you make on Christmas.”

The water glass she was about to pass him slips out of her fingers and shatters on the kitchen floor.

“Oh, shit!” he swears. She doesn’t react, just stands there gaping at him. “Stay right there, I’ll get the dustpan.”

Cass carefully sidesteps the danger zone, fetching the little broom and pan from the bottom cubby of the pantry and coming to sweep up the mess. When he’s sure he has the majority of it, he wipes the area down with a double-padded block of papers towels, soaking up the spilled water and any little pieces he might have missed.

When it’s all been carefully deposited into the garbage, Cass’ mom finds her words.

“You—what do you mean, can I teach you to make the lasagna? I thought you didn’t want to make it.”

Back then, Cass never imagined finding space in himself for a man, much less one he wanted to have a family with, bring home to meet his parents. But he’ll be damned if it comes to pass that he has the kids and doesn’t get his mama’s recipe. His brothers eat Christmas dinners in traditions led by their own wives these days.

“I changed my mind,” he says. Keep it simple.

“Honey, it takes a long time to make…”

“And I don’t have work until, uh… Thursday, right?” He checks the calendar pinned to the corkboard by the fridge. “Yeah, Thursday. I have all the time in the world between today and then.”

“I usually only make it for special occasions,” she deflects. “The ingredients are expensive.”

“I just came home from serving two tours over the course of six years,” Cass parries back. “Don’t worry about the cost. Look, I get a decent paycheck from work and I get a discount on top of it. I have the ingredients covered.” Then, softly, because he knows it’s a cheap mark but that it’ll work, “We can invite Bennett and Jackson, like you said.” 

His mom wobbles, almost ready to cave. The longer she refuses, the more hurt and confused Cassius is. She always used to talk, back before he burned all his dresses and bras, about how his brothers wouldn’t need a recipe like this after they were married but that he would.

“What makes you want to learn to make it now of all times?”

Cass wants to shake her a little, tell her she knows damn well why he wants to. He’s got a kid on the way, and despite his doubts he’s refused to give up the idea that Cliff wasn’t screwing with him.

“Y’know, best case scenario, he comes back here and we get married. You made me swear I’d only make it for the man I married, ma.”

“And if he doesn’t?” she reminds him softly.

He shrugs, a ball forming in his throat at the thought. He can still see the house, the bedroom, the garden, the window. “Worst comes to worst, I have a kid by myself and I make us lasagna on Christmas. That’s not the worst reason to want it, right?”

To his horror, Cassius realizes he’s shaking, unshed tears misting his eyes like fog rolling in from the mountains. He can see, just as easily, him and Bean by themselves. They make lasagna and a side salad for Christmas in a cheap little townhouse on Windy Creek Rd. where all the other dropouts and unwed mothers live. He asks his mom to teach him to sew, too, and Bean’s present that year is a new quilt with crooked dinosaur shapes embroidered around the edges.

Warm arms come to circle around him, a heavy callused palm in the middle of his shoulder blades. Testosterone had put him a couple inches above the crown of her head, and she tucks it up under his chin.

“That’s not a bad reason at all,” she says, gentle and trying her damndest not to get choked up on the words.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass hasn't seen his brothers in six years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My partner came up with Cliff's nickname for Cass, which was too cute not to canonize.

The lasagna takes _hours_ , and as promised the ingredients are expensive. Also as promised, Cassius pays for them out of his check.

His ma guides his hands, gives him gentle instructions, and he follows them to a T like a good little soldier boy.

If only making lasagna was anything like serving. His mom doesn’t bark orders, she tells him to sprinkle just a _little_ cinnamon into the meat. She mimes it for him, checks his fingers when he takes a pinch from the spice jar, and gives him a beaming smile when he comes out with something in the ballpark of what she wanted.

“That’s perfect, honey,” she says. “Go ahead, put it in.”

He sprinkles his pinch into the pan and gives it a stir. The aroma in the steam coming off the stovetop changes, spice lending subtle scent that makes his mouth water. He always, always knew this step by heart as a kid, was always able to detect the change as it happened even if he didn’t know what caused it.

It’s surreal, being back here at home, learning the ropes like this. It had hurt, all those years ago, knowing he had to give up on the things that were promised to him for the sake of some uncertain future.

The fact that he’d been willing to had just been a reminder that how he felt was _real._

When it’s in the oven, they tidy up the kitchen and wash their hands. Cass’ ma takes the apron from him and he tells her he’s gonna take a shower before Bennett and Jackson get in. She nods, turning to take the aprons to the hamper, as smeared as they are in sauce and flour. Then she hesitates, her aura heavy with the desire to say something. She’s just not sure if it’s a good idea, yet.

“C’mon, ma, out with it,” Cassius teases, gently rolling his shoulder into her own. “I can tell when somethin’s buggin’ you.”

She smiles at him. It turns out it’s not so much as words as it is a gesture. She reaches up a tentative hand, and when Cass doesn’t flinch back from her touch, she cups his jaw in her palm. It’s on the scarred side of his face, where his mouth and cheek have been shredded by shrapnel. A gentle, callused thumb strokes over the raised skin there, and for a moment his mother’s eyes are impossibly sad.

“Get yourself a shave while you’re up there, huh? You’re getting awful fuzzy, mister.”

Cass has to swallow the sudden lump in his throat. Maybe after this he’ll ask for her stuffed olive recipe, too.

“Sure, ma, wouldn’t dream of comin’ to Sunday dinner lookin’ like this.” It’s Wednesday.

She laughs, pats his cheek. “Then get. Your brothers will be here any minute.”

She’s right. He scrubs himself clean in under five, takes another two to get his face in order. He doesn’t shave clean—it doesn’t feel right, after spending so many months with scruff, and it takes the edge off the sight of his old injuries. He does scrape his throat bare, trims his chin and jaw to a respectable stubble, calls it good. Ben and Jack will make fun of him for dressing like a slob on their first meeting in six years, but they’ll also needle him if he comes down in a suit, so he takes the middle road, button-down over jeans.

Privately, he’s grateful he’s not showing yet. Not having the buttons fit over a bump would devastate him, he thinks. He’s not ready for that, yet.

All in all, he’s gone upstairs for ten minutes and when he comes back down his brothers are sitting downstairs on the couch, drinking tea and laughing with their mother.

“There he is!” Jackson says, loudly, as soon as he hears the creak of feet on the stairs.

“Hey!” Bennett follows, flashing his pearly whites at Cass when he descends enough to set his palm on the banister as opposed to guiding himself on the walls. He’s had enough space from Cliff’s tent to decide that he wasn’t going to be going tumbling down any stairs, accidental or not, even if his future is on Windy Creek Rd.

“Hey,” Cass says awkwardly once his feet are on the floor and he stands among them. One of the boys, at last.

Bennett, ever a puppy dog of a human being, sets his glass down and stands to bound over to his younger brother. He stops short a foot away, pale eyes zeroing in on Cass’ face and eyebrows scrunching together with surprise and a little bit (a lotta bit) of horror at the sight of the right side of his mouth.

“Holy shit,” she says.

“Language,” their ma scolds, but she looks more worried than irritated.

Cass only sent back a few pictures with his letters, and he knows that his parents kept both to themselves. His brothers haven’t seen what he looked like since he shaved his head and put on a fresh set of fatigues. It looks worse without an actual beard, only a layer of short gray-brown hair to smooth over the ruined skin.

Bennett doesn’t pay her heed.

“What the fuck happened to your fucking face?” he asks, voice high and sharp. It’s almost enough to make Cass laugh, despite the tense moment.

“What the fuck happened to your fucking manners?” Cass snaps back, getting into Bennett’s face. To his surprise (and pleasure), he’s about half an inch taller than his brother, now.

“Shut up and sit down, both of you,” Jackson booms from his place on the couch, where he hasn’t moved an inch, either in body or in feeling. He looks bored, one foot propped up on his knee and his glass of tea still in hand. “Bennett, you ought to apologize. He just got back. Cass, you’re being a scary asshole right now.”

Cass takes a sharp breath and steps back.

Jackson’s right.

Bennett looks genuinely startled, maybe even disturbed, by the way Cass got into his space. Men don’t do that out here unless they’re really, genuinely spoiling for a fight, and Cass wasn’t. He learned quick out in the military that being mean got you respect, and respect got you friends. Friends were important in the field, sometimes the difference between life and death. If Palmer was cruel enough to make fun of Cass’ scars, well, that just meant Cass needed to show him the right amount of knuckle and they’d have made up by dinner.

But he’s home now, and Bennett’s never been in a real fight before. He never had to be, was always too pretty and too funny and people loved him for it.

“Sorry,” he offers, because that’s the fastest way to put this behind them. He’s had to apologize first plenty of times, including to Palmer.

“Y-yeah,” Bennett says. “Me too. Sorry.”

His mom squeezes his shoulder as he passes, offering him a glass of tea which he accepts. He sits in the arm chair opposite the couch and levels a gaze at his brothers. Jackson takes stock of the shrapnel scars, and something subtle shifts in his eyes, something Cass can’t read. The important thing is that he doesn’t react otherwise. He’s got his own farm these days, and injuries aren’t uncommon out there. An inexperienced farmhand and a wheat thresher don’t mix well.

“You settling in?” he asks instead. “Mom told us you had your old room back.”

“Just until… just for a while,” Cass waves him off. Either until Cliff comes back or he doesn’t. Cass will know in three months. His mother’s face crumples with pain at the implication, but his brothers don’t know the guts of his situation yet. Hopefully they never will.

He resists the urge to press a hand to his belly.

“Got a job?” Bennett asks.

“Grocery store,” Cass says, and laughs when _both_ his brothers make a face like they’ve just smelled a fart they haven’t made. “What, what’s with that? It’s a job. I’d be bored as sh— bored to tears if I didn’t have something to do.”

“You could work for me,” Jackson says. “Strong ex-military guy like you would do well on a farm, right? I always need help with the animals and the crops, y’know.”

“Or you could come with me to the city,” Bennett says. “I could pull strings with my boss and get you some delivery work. It’s not glamorous, but it pays well.”

Cass snorts into his glass, but he’s privately grateful they want to see him succeed. He’s not unhappy with the work he’s got, even if the customers are all dickheads. Jackson’s farm work would pay like shit, even if he got to bring extra food home on top of it, probably. That would stretch a paycheck enough, he could make that work. Bennett’s delivery work, presumably for Bridges, would give him everything he needed to make a living for himself and his baby, enough to stay away from Windy Creek Rd. even, but… it would mean traveling a lot. Too much. He’d be away from Bean more often than not, and that’s not the kind of father he wants to be.

This is all also assuming that Cliff doesn’t come by to take him away to live in that house, the window in their bedroom and a garden for their kids, like he promised. Cliff could get a desk job, Cass’ benefits would go through by then and he wouldn’t have to work at all.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’ll think about it.”

Both of them seem satisfied by that, at least.

Conversations tilts between the three of them, after that. Jackson’s farm is successful—he’s got an orchard caging the edge of his property, and the apples from it get used to make jam, butter, cider, juice. He sells ‘em by the peck or the crate, too, to individuals and merchants. Other than that he grows barley and corn and soybeans. The margins are razor thin but it puts money in his account, food on his table. Bennett’s finally getting all the adventure he ever wanted, coming home for a couple days or weeks at a time before going on runs of deliveries that take him across the country while his wife Sammy runs her software development business from home.

“Sounds nice,” Cass says, leaning his head back against the back of the chair and letting his eyes slide shut. Sounds domestic. He wonders if he could run a business from home, too.

“The drives can be boring,” Bennett admits. “But hey, I bet you forgot what boring even was, huh?”

Cass snorts. “There was plenty of boring out there, Ben. We played so many games of cards we rubbed the pictures off some of ‘em and had to draw them back in with sharpie.”

“At least you had someone to play ‘em with!” Ben argues. “Half the time I don’t get a partner and if the radio stations all suck, I’m screwed.”

“No partners means no fighting over who gets a piss and a shower in the hotel room first,” Cass tells him, only because his mom’s in the kitchen getting more tea and isn’t in earshot to hear him say it. The truth is, Cass was usually either first or last, no in-between, because he spent a lot of time in Cliff’s tent on his knees and there was no chance to piss or shower unless he was first in line or half an hour late.

“You didn’t get along with your team?” Jackson asks.

“We got along fine,” Cass waves him off. “It’s different out there. They call it, uh… toxic masculinity these days, but the bigger an asshole you are to a guy the more you like him.”

Except in Hill’s case. He hopes.

“Anyone you were a huge asshole to?” Bennett asks, with a cutting gaze.

Cass grunts and doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t have to. Jackson’s not likely to care much about this specific topic, and if it’s 2-to-1 then Ben’s likely to drop it. He’s just glad none of his teammates are here to point out that he had it out for his Captain to the point of being insubordinate, and that his Captain had it out for him in equal measure.

That conversation can happen between him, Cliff, and his parents. Maybe.

“That means yes,” Bennett decides, sitting back with an aura of self-satisfaction that pisses Cass off.

“It doesn’t mean sh— it doesn’t mean anything,” he says, correcting course when he mother comes in with fresh glasses for all of them.

“What doesn’t mean anything?” she asks, to Cass’ groan of chagrin.

“I’m askin’ if Cass had a paramour in the army, ma,” Bennett laughs, but stops short when she gives him a sharp look, cutting the conversation short like scissors to thread.

“Let’s not talk about that,” she says.

Cass bites his scarred lip at her tone, chews when it makes both his brothers swivel their heads to stare at him. Maybe she’s doing it trying to save him some face, but all it does is signal to them that there’s something he doesn’t _want_ to talk about. Suddenly that joke, that tease, has become a secret that blankets the room in an air of irresistible mystery. It was easy to avoid keeping a diary when they were all growing up together, even though his mother insisted all girls did it, because he had two older brothers who would absolutely read it to see which boy he liked back in middle school.

She doesn’t understand, and he can’t explain it to her yet, but it was fine if it was just her and dad he needed to convince. His brothers won’t be nearly as understanding if they pry the lid off this thing. Maybe they shouldn’t be.

“Tell me about your kids,” he tells his brothers, channeling his Military Man Energy as best he can. Channeling Cliff as best he can.

This isn’t something they’re going to talk about today.

Bennett bends, starts talking about Suzie and how he and Sammy are thinking of a second. Even Jackson relents when Cass holds his position firm, but something about the way he sits tense for the rest of the hour tells him that it’s going to be something he’ll remember.

He wonders if he can squeeze a visit in with his nieces and nephews before he pops Bean out, get the lay of the land with kids and how they are. He wants to be prepared for mess and screaming, prepared to try to make schedules and having to throw them out the window when it comes time to follow them, prepared for endless messes and lots of board games and incessant demands for lullabies and bedtime stories.

He wants to do right by his baby.

When their dad comes in, the lasagna’s cooked through and Cass goes to pull it out of the oven to cool while he showers the dirt of the day off.

“Can I help with anything else?” he asks when his ma putters in, goes about making salad and garlic bread to serve alongside the main course.

“Nope,” she says, flashing him a subdued but genuine smile. “Go sit and talk with your brothers, hon. It’s been a long time. They missed you.”

That’s not a good idea, Cass is sure. Without her as a buffer, they might grill him about her mood shift earlier. He intends to say that, honestly, to press that they caught on that something was amiss and that boys don’t behave when their mothers aren’t around and that he’s not ready to explain and won’t be until he knows for sure whether he’s gonna get that ring…

Instead, he says: “They didn’t miss me.”

She flinches like she’s just touched the car door while wearing a wool coat in the dead of winter. He even thinks her hair stands on end a little.

“Of _course_ they missed you, Cass,” she murmurs. “They’re your brothers.”

“How was I s’posed to know?” he asks, biting out the words a little harder than he means to. He can’t bring himself to elaborate past that, but surely she knows. She has to know. They never wrote him, which meant he couldn’t write to them either. They didn’t even know what he looked like. And surely, _surely_ she remembers what Bennett said to him before he left.

It’s… even if they love him, deep down, even if this visit has been nice, even if he was the one who wanted to see them enough to suggest they visit… sometimes the hurt from the past rises up, unbidden and unwanted, uglier than even the scars on his face.

He shakes his head, trying to throw the whispering demons off his shoulders.

If they hadn’t missed him, they wouldn’t have come to see him or eat lasagna with him. Six years is plenty of time for purgatory for all of them.

“Let me help, ma,” he says, gentling his tone. “C’mon, I need to know how to make all of it, right? It’s not right if all of it’s not right.”

His mother gives him a watery smile and nods, finally agreeing. She directs him to chop some onion and cloves of garlic off to the side while she melts butter in a pot, sprinkling in salt and pepper as she goes.

They work in silence like that, stewing in the argument they’ve just had. Cass wants to apologize, but he also knows he shouldn’t have to. He’s spent too many years of gum in the hair his parents wouldn’t let him cut, permanent marker mustaches and cocks on his favorite posters, his favorite band shirts cuts to ribbons, bible verses in his underwear drawer, boys at school who stop looking at or talking to him in the halls, and a bevy of words that can’t be taken back to be told that, “they love you, they’re your brothers,” even one more time.

“Is this enough?” he asks when he’s got two neat piles of each.

“I don’t know,” she says, straining to be playful and mostly succeeding, “what does your heart tell you?”

She’s been doing that all night, saying that good measurements come from practice and intuition, not cups or spoons.

Cass looks in the pot, then looks at his piles on the cutting board.

“Little more,” he finally decides.

While she cooks the onions and garlic in butter, once he’s decided enough is enough, he takes the loaf of bread they baked together earlier that day and separates it into thick, even slices and lays them on an oven sheet.

“Do both sides, honey,” she instructs him as he glazes each slice in a thick layer of aromatic butter.

They slide the sheet into the still-hot oven and assemble a side salad together—shaved iceberg lettuce, black olives, red lettuce, cherry tomatoes, ricotta. His mother whisks together a light dressing with lemon juice, olive oil, and capers, telling him all the while to listen to his heart as he tosses the ingredients together and critically eyes it to see if there’s enough of each in the bowl.

Eventually, Jack and Ben come into the kitchen to wash their hands and set the table, and it’s like going back in time. The thought is heavy and soursweet on the back of Cass’ tongue.

His mother cuts the lasagna into neat squares, Cass adds the dressing into the salad, and their father steps into the kitchen with wet hair and a fresh face just as everyone else is ready to take their places.

“This all looks fantastic, Bon,” he praises as he finds his seat, gentleness he only ever reserved for his wife.

She tsks, eyes twinkling. “Thank Cass,” she corrects him. “He did a lot of the work here.” Even her distaste at the surrounding circumstances can’t overshadow her joy at getting to pass the recipe onto her youngest, the good work he did.

Everyone else’s eyebrow’s shoot up, and Cass slides against the back of his chair with the kind of embarrassment he’d always faced as the youngest child, the baby of the family held up to an extra critical eye against his brothers whether he followed in their footsteps on not. He’d been proud to help put together such a nice dinner with his mother, but now he wishes she’d just take all the damn credit. Cliff and Bean will appreciate it more than enough, he’s sure.

“Since when are you helping mom cook?” Bennett guffaws. “The military screw your head up that bad?”

“Ben,” their father says, his voice a freshly sharpened knife coming off the block. “Lord, even as a grown man you cannot keep your mouth shut, can you.”

“Sorry dad,” Bennett sulks half-heartedly, his bright gaze still pinned to his younger brother in amazement. Cass can’t blame him, not really. But it’s been six years, hasn’t it, and he’s allowed to change his mind about a couple things. They all are. Mom would probably let his wife borrow the recipe, if she really wanted it. Jackson’s, too.

“It looks fantastic, Cass,” Jackson interrupts, voice stilted and awkward. “You did a great job.”

“Thanks,” Cass mutters. “Look, can we just say grace and eat already? Since the cat’s out of the bag, mom and me have been at this all day and I’m starving.”

They join hands across the table.

“Close your eyes, Cass,” his father says after a moment, not even having to open his own to know. “Both of them, please,” he adds a moment later.

Cass grunts an acknowledgment, closes his other eye, and then they start.

“Thank you, Lord, for bringing my family back to the dinner table Bonnie and I raised our family on,” his father says. “Thank you for Jackson and Bennett’s successes in their businesses, and for their wives and their beautiful children. Thank you for Bonnie and I’s health in our older age. But most of all, Lord,” and Daniel’s voice begins to waver here, “thank you for bringing my third son home safe from war still sound in body and mind. It is a blessing to have him home after all these years.”

Cass can’t help himself—his eyes shoot open, his mouth parted like he wants to interrupt, to say something, but he can’t find the words. Is this to make himself _look_ better, goddamnit? He’s barely even looked at Cass since he got back, even less so after Cass admitted he was going to be having a child with some grunt from his squadron.

He thinks Cass is crazy, sound mind his ass. And from his (very clear, thanks) opinion on Cass’ baby, the body part is probably a load of shit too.

None of the rest of his family thinks it’s a lie, their eyes all closed and their faces soft with peace, happy to be here. But they wouldn’t, after all.

His mother blinks her eyes open and smiles at him. “You’re the baby _and_ the guest of honor, Cass. Want to finish it off for us?”

He’d start a fight if he refused, and that would reflect badly on him after he _insisted_ on learning his mom’s recipe and having his brothers over. This was his idea, after all, all of it. So he takes a breath and stonily recites: “Bless us O Lord and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ, our Lord. Amen.”

“Amen,” his entire family repeats as one after him, and it makes him feel like he’s watching them like a voyeur through the window. Still the odd one out, even when he’s the reason they’re all together.

The meal he and his mother spend so many hours preparing together may as well taste like woodchips and it sits in his stomach like a rock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got some hits and some kudos, which was encouraging. I really had no idea if anyone would be even remotely interested in my OC or his family. Thank you, guys. Cliff sort of shows up in the next chapter, in a manner of speaking. If you're interested in seeing more, tap the kudos button!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass receives a letter, and goes to see his best friend.

Almost two months in, Cassius finally gets a letter back after sending in lucky number seven.

He tries not to hyperventilate at the mailbox when he pulls out the envelope and sees Cliff’s spidery handwriting carefully printing his name and address on the front on the envelope. He can’t stop the itch of a sniffle in his nose, the faint shake in his shoulders at the sight, something he didn’t realize he was missing so badly until he has it in his hands.

What if it’s telling him he isn’t really coming back with a ring? What if it tells him to stop writing? What if it’s telling him he actually already has a wife and family in the house he promised Cass? What if he’s not actually interested in leaving the military, even for Bean if not Cass himself?

He barely manages to make it to the kitchen table with the mail in his hand, brain mounting an assault with worse and worse scenarios of worst-case scenarios. Once he’s able to toss the bills and catalogs into a haphazard pile, he reaches for the letter opener proper so he doesn’t accidentally ruin any of the lines making up his name on the front of the envelope, so lovely and fine.

 _My little firecracker, I’ve missed you,_ the letter starts, and then all the words blur into an incomprehensible mess behind the film of tears in his eyes.

His dad’s out working and his mom is seeing friends in town, so there’s very little shame in letting loose right then and there. He presses his forehead to the cool, polished wood of the kitchen table and lets a wet sob bubble up out of his throat. Suddenly all the spiderwebs weighing down his heart seem like they weren’t even there at all, washed away in a rainstorm.

He can hear the words in his fucking head just as clear as he can see them on paper, once he can see them on paper, Captain’s Unger’s accent twisting the ends of the letters into curlicues.

_I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write back, darling, but I’ve received all your letters. It’s been a mess out here, as well you know. Your squadron misses you, as well. What you lacked in collaboration you certainly more than made up for in raw energy._

Bastard, can’t help needling Cass even now that he’s out of the action and stuck at home trying to be a responsible future parent.

Not that Cass is an innocent party either, of course. He’s taken his own fair share of jabs over the course of his notes. Still, Cliff ought to have a little more sympathy for the man carrying his kid.

Hill, now bereft of his favorite drill partner and endless vat of policy violations that need correcting, has joined forced with Arnolds instead. That sounds like a solid match, Cass thinks. Maybe Arnolds will help the crazy asshole chill out just a little bit, direct that well-meaning energy into productive avenues that don’t (can’t) involve trying to better Cass whom it’s already too late for.

_I’m pleased to hear that your family is well. I’m eager to meet them. I hope they don’t resent me too much for stealing you away just as soon as they’ve gotten you back. Hopefully I can convince them that I’m perfectly capable of taking care of you, keeping you reigned._

Cass cringes at that. Considered what his parents think about the situation, he’s less than eager.

Still, he finds he desperately wants to see Cliff again. He writes just like he talks, too formal and too blunt at the same time, and yet it’s hopelessly frustrating that he can’t talk _back_. Not immediately at least, feedback on a delay that makes true communication impossible. Cliff can read his best approximation at penning some snark, but he can’t hit back with nearly as much force as he could in his tent. He can’t take control of the situation like he could back then, twisting Cass around and around until he’s ensnared by frustration and use that frustration as a leash, can’t coax Cass into his bunk to burn off all that angry energy…

Fuck, but he misses his Captain. As long as Cliff is serious about sweeping Cass off his feet, Cass will hold onto that promise that Cliff will take him on his back in a real bed, no boots splattering mud right outside while Cass tries not to moan loud enough to escape the Captain’s palm and get them caught.

It’s a miracle they didn’t, and it’s not a secret they can hide forever. Just because nobody caught him with his knees open and stamp him with a dishonorable discharge doesn’t meant they weren’t fucking careless.

But right now, and more and more each day, he’s finding he can’t really bring himself to care.

_Most of all, I’m eager to meet our child. As always, I’ve been thinking of names. You haven’t mentioned checkups, but just because I’m not there with you doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go. Make sure it’s healthy for me, my firecracker. Sleep and eat well. Don’t work too hard. Stay safe._

_I’ll have leave in ten weeks. I’ll try to write to you before then, but if I can’t, keep me in your thoughts regardless. You haven’t left mine since you’ve been gone._

_Your Captain,_

_Cliff Unger_

He reads the letter over and over, top to bottom to front to back until the words cross and he can’t make them make sense anymore. Then, he folds it neatly back into the envelope and sticks it in the drawer of the desk in his room. Not the most inspired hiding spot, but if his parents go snooping, well… they already know he’s pregnant. Little else he can do to toss gasoline on that fire.

At least it makes Cliff look good, as good as he can look right now. Maybe he should leave it on the kitchen table, actually… or, no. They don’t know he slept with his superior officer and not a bunkmate. Nevermind, in the drawer it goes.

He considers getting a paper and pen and writing back immediately, but he can’t think of what to say.

He’d left the lasagna out of the letters he sent, wanting it to be a surprise. He’d also left the specifics of the job and the stabs and pinpricks of pain that came with dealing with family clear out of it. There’s no reason to make Cliff worry, no need to make himself look miserable. He has a roof over his head and his family has somehow learned to deal with their internal issues, as jury-rigged as their methods are. Sure, his parents have almost slipped up a couple of times, but they haven’t quite done so yet.

Writing to make commentary on his old teammates seems both lacking taste and completely inane. He doesn’t want to pop Cliff’s bubble about meeting his family just yet, either. There’s still time for them to warm up to the idea, and he’s got his fingers crossed that Cliff making good on his promises is going to thaw them at least a little.

He could address Bean’s name, but the truth is that he has no fucking idea what they should name the kid. He could ask his ma how she and dad picked, but he’s not jumping at the bit to talk to her about his kid, and he’s sure she’s not either.

  
  


That just means he needs to find inspiration, something worth writing about.

The clock tells him it’s early in the afternoon still, and neither of his parents ought to be getting home for a while yet, which means he has time for an adventure.

The most prominent thought in his head is Bean, as it usually is if it isn’t tiptoeing around his parents or helping his mom with dinner. If he can’t ask his mom what to name it, then he could ask someone else, right? His brothers don’t know yet, so they’re right out, and Jackson’s wife was a girl from a different high school than theirs so he doesn’t know her.

Bennett’s wife, on the other hand…

Well, Sammy wouldn’t have met Bennett if it hadn’t been for Cassius. He’s even sure she’d laugh her head off if Cass referred to asking for advice as ‘calling in a favor.’

Mom’s address book is on the table next to the landline, and he flips it open to W, and when he doesn’t find what he wants there, backwards to R.

There—Bennett & Samantha Reynolds-Wright.

Hesitation sets in when he reaches for the phone, the electricity running through it enough to tingle the skin of his palm even though he’s not actually touching it. It’s been six years for her, too, right? Cass isn’t ungrateful for the fact that his family’s mellowed with age and maturity, but in the same way that animosity can fade, friendship can too.

He picks up the receiver and punches every button in, hard and slow, like the phone is going to finally interrupt and tell him to just drop it. He can get a book, right? They sell shit like that. He can get a book and ask Cliff his opinions on a couple of the names, maybe in a letter and maybe when he gets here.

It doesn’t.

The phone rings four times and Cassius is about to lay the phone back in the cradle, but he’s startled enough to squeak when instead of voicemail picking up the call, there’s a click and a vaguely crackly, “Hello?”

She doesn’t sound exactly the same. Older, yeah, not as mischievous as when they were fifteen and bored and angry at the world. But it’s still close enough that she’s recognizable, even a few miles and a long time apart.

“Bonnie?” Samantha presses a bit, sounding confused, and oh jeez that’s weird. It makes sense that she wouldn’t call her in-laws mister and missus anymore, though. “Hello, Bonnie? Daniel? Did something happen?”

Shit, right.

“Uh, ah. No, nothing happened, Sammy, it’s just me,” Cass finally says, swallowing the peanut butter that apparently materialized in his mouth just in time to glue it shut. “It’s—“

“Cass!” Sammy says with a gasp, voice blooming with joy. “Hey, Cass! Benny told me you were back from serving, but I wasn’t sure when would be a good time to call you. I figured you’d want some rest, but—God, I’m really happy to hear from you! How’ve you been? I really wanted to come along for dinner, but Benny said he didn’t want to crowd you so soon. Is it really true you caved and asked your mom to teach you that lasagna?”

Cass laughs enough to prompt a little snort, and he covers his nose and mouth even though she’s not even here to see it. Still, he knows she heard and he can imagine her brown eyes sparkling honey gold at it.

“Slow your roll, Sammy,” he says. “That’s a lotta questions to answer over a landline, huh? Hey, I know you might be working, but I figured since it was Saturday… Well, I mean, you’re free to say no. But mom also made cookies and I could bring home if you wanted, catch up for a bit.”

“I’m _not_ going to say no your mom’s cookies,” Sammy says. “How long do you think it’ll take to get here?”

When Cass was fifteen, his dad bought an old-as-dirt Camry for five hundred bucks and fixed it up in their own driveway over the course of six months and it was Cass’ sixteenth birthday present. The key stuck in both Summer and Winter and it had a voice like it had pneumonia every time it gets started up, but instead of selling it for parts once Cass left two years later, they just… held onto it. Kept driving it.

When Cass came home and got a job, his dad handed him back the keys, which stick even worse these days than they did back then.

The drive to Sammy and Bennett’s is the first time he’s enjoyed driving it since he got back. When he was in high school, he used to like the roll down the windows and let his hair fly wild. Today, he props an elbow outside to feel the sun and drives one-handed with his fingers curled around the bottom of the wheel, careful on the dirt roads. A plate of cookies liberally mummified in plastic wrap sits on the passenger seat.

Forty-five minutes later, he raps his knuckles on the door of the house whose address matches the one Sammy gave him over the phone, the plate balanced on the flattened palm of his free hand.

A little girl opens the door.

Cass gives her the best smile he can, self-conscious about the way his scars bend at the motion.

“You must be Suzie.”

Suzie is a spitting image of her mother, honey-gold eyes and hair pulled into a mane of neat braids. She stares, unabashedly as kids do, at Cass’ rough, blemished face and he patiently waits for her to react. Finally she leans into the house and calls, “MOMMY! Your friend!” before casting one last backward glance at him and disappearing back into the house, leaving the door open.

Cass waits, feeling too awkward to go inside without being invited.

He only relaxes when he hears footsteps on hardwood with the weight of an adult behind them. Then, Sammy’s face appears in the doorway and she beams at him.

“There you are!” she says, and her eyes get impossibly brighter when she catches sight of the plate balanced on Cass’ palm. “You brought the cookies!”

“Of course I brought the cookies,” he says.

“Did you ask if you could, mister?” she teases, opening the door and leaning her hip on the frame. It’s odd how different she looks, arms strong from hauling a kid around and the skinny angles of her softened from teenhood. Yet she’s still the same as ever, too, in a faded band tee and denim jeans rolled up under her knees.

“When have I ever?” Cass says, and she laughs and steps into the house, waving him in.

“I see you met Suzie,” she says. “I hope she didn’t say anything… y’know, weird.”

“I see Bennett came home and blabbed about my face,” Cass snorts. Sammy tosses an apologetic look over her shoulder at him.

“Sorry. He made it sound a lot worse that it actually is.”

“Yeah, well. He’s a drama king, ain’t he.”

Sammy shows him to a seat in the living room, where he unwraps the plate of cookies and sets them on the coffee table and unties his boots, putting them neatly to the side where nobody will trip and where he won’t track any dirt into the carpet.

Suzie peeks her head around another doorway leading into a hall where Cass assumes her bedroom is.

“You shy, kid?” he asks, smiles when she ducks back into the shadows before peeping out at him again.

“Susanna, stop staring,” Sammy scolds as she comes back into the room with a tray stacked with three glasses of milk, two in mugs and one in a plastic cup with a butterfly printed onto the side of it. “Come say hi to your uncle Cass and you can have a cookie, okay?”

Suzie steps out of her hiding spot, more bold now that her mother is here.

“Daddy said I only had an uncle Jackie.”

Ouch. Cass can’t stop the way his eyes pop open a little bit at that, and Sammy looks absolutely mortified.

“Suzie!”

“She’s fine,” Cass says, laying a gentle hand on Sammy’s shoulder. “She’s just a kid, kids are, uh. Brutally honest. Really, Sam,” he adds when Sammy turns her heartbroken face onto him, “I’ve had worse in the military.”

It’s sort of true and sort of not, and it doesn’t seem to make Sammy feel any better but it at least softens the blow of what Bennett apparently told their daughter.

“He’s been… not that this excuses it at all, but he’s seemed a lot better lately. I can’t— He probably said it meaning she only had an uncle Jackson right here that she could meet and talk to.”

Cass nods. That’s not where his head went first, but it makes sense in its own right.

That’s something worth holding onto, right?

“I didn’t write him,” he throws out, even though he hates to do it. This isn’t his fault, but he’s in Sammy’s house and he wants to make her feel better first and foremost. Even if she didn’t always ‘get it’ she at least listened when he cried about it in the hallways, did her best to call him the right things, the right names. He doesn’t need protecting from this. He doesn’t need protection from anything— he can protect himself now.

Suzie frowns from the doorway, sensing the way the room’s gone sideways. She’s picking at the fabric flowers on her shirt with a frown, looking like she maybe wants to go back into the hallway again.

Well, there’s a way to fix that.

“Want a cookie, kiddo?” Cass asks, waving to the plate.

Suzie regards it for a second, and then nods very seriously in the way onto a five-year-old can be serious about cookies.

“Come have one. Your mama brought out some milk.”

Sammy relaxes minutely when Suzie decides that she would, in fact, rather have one of grandma’s cookies than she would rather avoid having to meet her newly fabricated uncle. She comes over to the coffee table, pausing to consider Cass for a second.

“Are you really my uncle?” she asks.

“Yes, I am,” Cass says, and then reaches out to offer his hand for a shake. Suzie’s eyes brighten up with Sammy’s sparkle at the gesture. Probably something she’s seen on TV but hasn’t had happen to her before. When she puts her palm—tiny, so tiny, are Bean’s hands gonna be this small?—into his, he gives it a gentle shake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady.”

Suzie giggles, and then her bravery finally runs out. She grabs a cookie from the top of the pile and crawls up onto the couch on the far side of it, so she’s sitting next to her mom.

“Don’t forget your milk, baby,” Sammy reminds her, passing her the butterfly cup.

Cass takes one of the mugs when it’s offered to him, dunking a cookie into it just long enough for it to soak up the milk without losing its crunch.

“Your uncle Cass,” Sammy says, turning to speak to her daughter, “is my bestest friend in the whole world.”

“I thought daddy was your best friend,” Suzie argues. “And me.”

“All three of you are my best friends,” Sammy amends. “I met Uncle Cass first, though. We went to high school together and that’s how I met your daddy.”

Suzie seems to accept this information, nodding sagely before promptly losing interest in the topic altogether and turning back to her milk and cookie. Sammy laughs and Cass follows suit, the tight threads ensnaring the room finally loosening enough for both of them to finally breathe. He can only imagine that Bennett is in the doghouse for this, if Cass is still her bestest friend in the whole world.

“She’s a great kid,” Sammy says, leaning into Cass’ shoulder to watch her daughter gulp her milk to get all the cookie crumbs. “A little shy sometimes and a little outspoken others, as you’ve seen.”

“She definitely takes after you, then,” Cass says, gently nudging her with his elbow. She snorts.

“Really? Because I think she got the last one from Benny in spades.”

“Don’t forget how you were in creative writing,” Cass reminds her. “Always reading your stuff out loud for the class, huh?”

“Don’t remind me of my adolescent mistakes,” she laughs.

“Mommy, I’m done,” Suzie announces. “Can I go play in my room?”

“Of course, honey,” Sammy says, reaching over to tuck a slender braid behind her daughter’s ear. Her face glows warm with affection, a love so deep Cass is sure it can’t be anything but unconditional, and his chest squeezes painfully for it. Suddenly all the words he’s been trying to stuff down the drain and into the garbage disposal clog and start to try and backflow, a desire to talk about Bean with someone who isn’t committed to hating the idea of it.

He wants to talk to somebody who understands.

When they hear Suzie’s door close, Sammy pinches the skin between her eyebrows.

“I’m so, so sorry about that,” she says, shoulders slumping. “I don’t know… I wasn’t there for whatever conversation that was, so I can’t really analyze the intent, but I know the intent doesn’t help when it all boils down to… well. That.”

“Don’t ‘pologize, Sammy,” Cass says, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and pulling her against his side. Once again he’s walloped with a wall of nostalgia, and in his mind’s eye he can see how they were when they were young, just like this, sitting on the hood of his Camry and watching from a distance as their school lit fireworks on the Fourth of July. “Got nothin’ to apologize for.”

“But Benny sure does,” she grumbles.

“Sure, but he won’t.”

She gives him a sad look, and god if that very look didn’t break his heart every single time she leveled him with it.

“I promise he’s been trying to do better. They all have. Ever since you left. He never stopped regretting… saying that. He was so excited when he got the call inviting him to come sit down for an old-fashioned family dinner with the five of you all together.”

“But he still said it,” Cass whispers, closing his eyes so he won’t cry. “I know you love him, Sam, an’ I do too. He still said it, and he ain’t gonna say sorry. Didn’t apologize for jack when he thought I was a girl, ain’t gonna do it now.”

Bennett’s always had a big, stupid mouth. Why not, when you could talk your way out of anything?

“I understand,” Sammy says. “You get to be mad at him, that’s your right. I’m glad you came to see me ‘n Suzie anyway.”

“Baby,” Cass grins at her, “I am gonna buy that kid so many shitty noisy toys for Christmas, you have no idea.”

Sammy laughs, open-mouthed at that, and punches him in the shoulder.

“Fuck you, jerk!” she giggles. “You’re lucky I can’t do the same to you, because if I could your house would be covered in drum sets and whoopie cushions!”

Cass shrugs a shoulder and casts his eyes away, because the only way he’s gonna be able to do this is if he isn’t looking straight at her, or anyone. Even ma and dad couldn’t catch his eye when he told them about their impending grandkid at their own kitchen table.

“I mean, you still might be able to,” he says, trying to sound casual and not quite managing.

“I— Cass, what?”

When he doesn’t answer, still unable to help himself from trying to plug the stopped up drain, she reaches up and gently cups his cheek, turning him to look at her. She’s definitely caught the tone there, the implications of his words. Her brows are furrowed in concern, searching his face for any clues about his situation. She used to be able to do it effortlessly, so effortlessly, and when he’s riled up it’s still easy to do. But… well, he’s got new things to hide now that everybody knows he wasn’t his momma’s li’l girl.

“Please talk to me?” she asks. “What does that mean, you—you thinking of having kids now that you’re home?”

“I mean,” he says, tries to search for a way to say it that won’t feel like dropping a bomb, “that Suzie’s probably gonna have a baby cousin in… shit, what was it, like… six months? Five, seven? Give or take.”

Sammy’s eyes widen, mouth parting in mounting horror. “Were you—”

“I met someone,” he clarifies. Jesus, he really needs to be clearer about this. His parents were gonna assume the worst no matter what, but it’s not too late for Sammy. “In the military. In my squadron.”

“And you, what, got a little handsy and careless?”

“Jesus, Sam, don’t say it like that. You’re acting like it was an accident.”

“Wasn’t it?”

Cass screws up his mouth in a pout, and glosses right over her accusation. She’d be unbearable if she knew she had it on the money. “We’ve been writing letters back and forth. He’s taking leave soon.”

Well, _he’s_ been writing letters. Cliff’s returned one of them, but that won’t help her opinion.

“Just leave?” Sammy asks, looking pensive.

“He’s still on the hook for a while, a little under two years. We were gonna have a shotgun wedding and then a real one once he’s out for good.”

If he’s serious, which Cass can’t truly shake his doubts over. The response was a weight off his shoulders, but he won’t feel home safe until Cliff’s signed their lives together, taken responsibility in the eyes of both the law and of hearth and home. This is all assuming he comes back at all. Cass doesn’t want to think about that scenario, but Cliff could always just up and die out there.

“Do you want that?” Sammy asks. This is a conversation they’ve had many times before.

 _Do you want that?_ Cass coming out. _Do you want that?_ Sammy getting together with Bennett. _Do you want that?_ Sammy traveling two states over for college. _Do you want that?_ Cass joining the military. _Do you want that?_ Sammy giving up an arts career.

“Yes,” Cass tells her.

For whatever she must hear in his voice in that moment, she can’t hear any doubt, because she finally offers him a nod and brushes a gentle thumb under his eye. He leans into her touch.

“Cassius, this is really stupid and dumb of you but I’m going to support you in it because I love you and also because God said to love thy neighbor even if he does make terrible decisions.”

It’s almost word for word what he said about her relationship with Bennett.

Cass chuckles and folds his hand over hers. Everyone out here has calluses on their hands. The ones on Sammy’s fingertips are faint and thin, but they’re still there. His own are rough, yellow and waxy… They both have their own marks that they’ve moved through the world and he misses when things were simpler, before he learned everything was so scary and raw.

It’s been so long.

“I’m sorry I didn’t write to you more,” he says.

“You should be,” she says, half serious and half teasing.

Cass reaches for another cookie, because his milk’s going to get warm if he doesn’t drink it soon and Bean needs milk, right? The cookie can be taken or left, but it’s easier to drink milk with cookies.

“I want to meet him,” Sammy says, and her face has shifted from pensive to calculating. “When he’s on leave.”

“Sure,” Cass tells her. “But you have to leave the shovel at home.”

Sammy rolls her eyes. “I can’t make any promises about that.”

Suzie pops her head around the corner again, this time with a doll in her hand, one of the old fashioned cloth kinds that Sammy probably got from her own mom when she was little. Sammy sits up straight, taking her hand back from Cass’ cheek and offering her little girl a smile.

“What do you need, Sue?”

Suzie, being five and caring little about whatever it is adults talk about, stares straight at the plate still sitting on the coffee table. “Can I have another cookie, mommy?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass gets a phone call.

Four days later, Cass is propped up on the couch after work, showered and with a book in his lap. Reading was one of the best downtimes in the bunks with his brothers—didn’t bother nobody else, took you out of the situation for a while. He couldn’t stand it back in high school, but if it was easier to avoid ire with a novel in his hands then he started fucking reading novels, y’know?

Mom’s in the kitchen, having shooed him off so she could make dinner in peace for once (“I couldn’t keep you in here as a kid, now I can’t get you out!”) when the phone rings.

He’s only listening with half an ear, enough to know what’s going on outside the pages of his story, enough to still be startled when she leans into the living room and says, “Cass, honey? It’s for you. It’s Ben.”

Well, shit.

He doesn’t really wanna talk to Bennett.

Still, he’s not gonna tell his ma that, or why. There’s plenty of worms in the ground outside, and they don’t need any canned store-bought.

Cass dog-ears his page, sets his book on the table, and stands to take the phone. He makes himself scarce in the corner of the kitchen so his mom has full range of motion still, cradling the receiver against his ear with one hand and ruffling through the catalogs that came in the mail with Cliff’s letters with the other, just to have something to burn the nervous energy off on.

“Hey, Ben,” he says into the phone.

“Hey! Hey,” Bennett greets him, voice a little too high and sharp before he schools it into a tense facsimile of a normal human address.

“What’s up man?” Cass says, letting himself be briefly distracted when he notices that one of the magazines is bridal, feels himself flush to the tips of his ears and nose as he’s briefly carried away by the thought of that, of marriage. The official signing’s going to be nothing like this, flower arrangements or champagne. He’s not sure what Cliff would want if it was… weren’t they going to have a real celebration at some point?

He pictures himself in one of these suits, black or navy blue. Dark gray, even, maybe. He’s having trouble, not able to do little more than copy and past his own scowling, petulant face over those of the brightly smiling grooms in the glossy pages.

“So you wanted to visit, but not while I was there, huh?” Bennett says, dragging him back into the reality of an unfortunate phone call. He’s trying to sound flat, but there’s still a waver of upset trying to hide under it, easy enough to pick up.

“It was one of my days off, bro,” Cass says, turning his attention back to the catalog. “That’s literally all the thought that went into it. I wanted to see my best friend, Ben. You weren’t invited to all our hangouts after the two of you started dating, and I don’t have to make you sure you’re always included now that we’re grown ups.”

His mother is starting to give him glances, not even in the neighborhood of covert. Then again, she’s made it no secret she was listening in since she’s barely been mixing or grating since he got in here.

“It’s my house,” Bennett says. “I have a right to know what goes on there.”

“C”mon,” Cass grunts. “You pullin’ that jealousy bullshit outta your back pocket again? Told you then and I’m tellin’ you now, I’m not into Sammy like that.”

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t be, huh?”

The makes Cass stand up straight, ramrod straight, like it’s inspection and he’s not trying to get any more writeups. The bridal magazine is both immediately forgotten and distressingly in the forefront of his head, and his mother gives up any ghosts about pretending she’s still trying to make dinner, wringing her hands and yet not being able to break up this fight because all her boys are grown now.

“The fuck’s that s’posed to mean?” Cass spits, hackles all the way up.

“I dunno, I just guess that you getting discharged around the same time that Suzie’s apparently getting a new cousin in seven months just happens to be a coincidence.”

Cass curls his lip sharply, showing his fangs. Bennett’s lucky they’re going this on the phone because even Palmer wouldn’t get away with trying to pick this fight. God, if Cass was there he’d knock his fucking brother’s teeth right down his throat, see how good he was talking his way out of bullshit after that.

“You takin’ little kids’ words outta context now, Benny?”

Suzie must have heard pieces of their conversation in between going to play in her room and asking for another cookie. She must have been excited to get so much new family in one day, poor thing, and could have been chatting with her daddy about it, or weaving it into a story for her toys, or any number of things.

“What context am I _supposed_ to take it in?” Benny barks back, the veneer of a friendly phone call falling entirely by the wayside on both sides.

“I dunno,” Cass snarls, “What context am I supposed to take, ‘daddy told me I only had an uncle Jackie,’ in?”

There’s a sharp inhale of breath on the other end of the line.

On the other side of the room, his mother flinches and presses a hand to her mouth, eyes wide with shock and despair.

Bennett starts backpedaling, now in on the defensive. “Y-you—I mean, it was convenient,” he finally decides on. “You know how h-hard it is to explain to—to a little kid about the military, huh, Cass? You wouldn’t want her thinking that… that you don’t love her, right, that’s why you never come to visit?”

“Or,” Cass says, and he’s distantly humiliated to realize he sounds hysterical, “were you hopin’ you wouldn’t have to explain to her why you used to have two brothers and now you only got one, right? If I _conveniently_ died in—uh, what’d you call it, before I left? _Honorable combat?_ ”

It comes up like bile, uncontrolled and sour and hurting, and he feels sick for it.

The whole world feels like it stops spinning for a second, and Cass wonders idly if he’s about to get flung off the surface of the earth and into space, both him and the homunculus puppet of him still holding the phone in front of him.

God, all he wanted to do today was read after work.

“Cass—” Benny starts, and abruptly stops when Cass slams the phone back into the receiver.

“Cass!” his mother says at the loud bang of plastic on plastic, and runs out of admonishments once Cass reaches over and pulls the jack out of the wall when the phone starts ringing again a few moments later.

“I’m going upstairs,” he says. His whole face feels numb. His whole chest, too, actually. His words don’t even feel like his own, sounding stilted and awkward in his ears.

He doesn’t even remember the walk up to his room, having may as well teleported up there, but now that he’s here all he feels is trapped. He wants to take Cliff’s letter out and read it again, but he can’t make himself open the drawer. Would his captain think he’s righteous, or bitter? He wishes he could ask, and he can’t, and it makes his chest ache. It makes his _stomach_ ache.

It—

Oh, fuck. He’s gonna be sick.

There’s a little garbage can under the nightstand, and he’s grateful for it, because he wouldn’t be able to make it to the bathroom the way the nausea rises up in him like a wave.

And even that doesn’t make him feel any better, just makes him feel tired and drained. He curls up on his bed, doesn’t bother stripping out of his shirt or pants or crawling under the covers. Fuck, he didn’t even remember his book on the way up, has no distractions and it’s too late to go get it now.

Whatever. He feels a little better when he turns out the light, anyway.

-

He wakes up to the sound of ceramic against wood.

When Cass sits up to turn on the light, his mother is there, face owlish in surprise and her hands still around the edge of the plate where she’s trying to sneak it onto his nightstand.

“You’re a light sleeper, huh?”

“Had to be,” he says, pulling his knees up against his chest in implicit invitation. His mother takes it, smoothing her skirt under her knees and sitting on the edge of his bed.

They’ve done this song and dance before plenty of times. He just wishes he wasn’t in his twenties and about to pop out a baby of his own, about to have his mother play referee between him and his brothers after yet another earth shattering argument. She should be enjoying her days, goddammit, making cookies for her grandkids and seeing her friends and… doing crochet or some shit. Anything but still running interference to the lot of them.

He should have gone somewhere else. He shouldn’t have come back here.

“I brought you dinner,” she says.

“Thanks, mom,” Cass says. “But that’s now what you came up here to say.”

It’s not. She frowns, reaching out to put a hand on his knee and it’s a struggle not to pull away like he used to do. She seems surprised, and relieved, but he can’t stand the thought of that sad look on her face should he refuse her affection.

“I just… he regrets saying it,” she says. “He never stopped regretting it, Cass. He prayed every day for your safety out there.”

“Then he needs to say that to me,” Cass bites out, frustration starting to stir, a tornado six years in the making. “I don’t have to forgive him if he won’t even say sorry. Not to you, or Sammy, or— or God or _whoever_. I’m the one he said it to and he needs to say sorry _to me_.”

His mother sighs and squeezes his knee.

“I understand,” she says.

“If you did,” Cass interrupts, “then you wouldn’t keep making excuses for him. He had a chance to do it, mom. He had a lot. He coulda written me a letter while I was out there. He coulda done it on the phone just now. He coulda even done it at dinner, when it was just the five of us, coulda pulled me aside. I woulda listened. But he just called me ugly.”

She looks at him with wet eyes and he can’t even make himself feel bad for it.

“We’re all glad to have you back,” she says, finally, and the frustration builds, another whorl of clouds brewing in a shelf cloud.

“I’ll be outta your hair in no time,” he says, looking away. His eyes land on dinner, and his stomach squirms with residual nausea. He points his gaze at the corner instead, but he can smell it now and it’s making his stomach cramp again. “Cliff’s gonna be here in no time, and I’m gonna move in with him.”

“Cliff?” she asks. “Is that…?”

Cass cringes. He hadn’t realized he’d never said his captain’s name out loud, hadn’t said _anything_ out loud, really. He’d guarded the knowledge of his kid’s dad like a dragon’s horde.

“Yeah, that’s… that’s the father,” he says, slipping a hand, finally, under his shirt to touch his stomach. It hasn’t really started to show yet, but it will. He’s sure it will soon. His Bean’s not going to be a bean for much longer.

“You mentioned him coming back to marry you,” his mother says.

“Yeah. Soon.”

“How much longer?” she asks, and he’s not sure what he expected those words to sound like but it’s not trepidation, not really.

“Couple more months,” Cass says. There’ll be a bump in a couple more months. He wonders if Cliff will be happy, if Cliff will do any of that embarrassing shit people do in front of his parents.

Again, his mother doesn’t seem happy but doesn’t seem to want to push the envelope any further than it’s been pushed tonight, filing her thoughts away for later. Cass wonders if it’ll ever actually come up, or if she’ll just stew on it until they all die, as people are occasionally wont to do. He’s not really opposed to never having to talk about this again, actually. It’ll be easier to avoid once he’s married, or at least moved out, regardless of where he lives. Maybe he and Bean can find a nice rock to live under, worst comes to worst.

“Are you excited to see him?”

“I _was_ ,” Cass grunts. “But now I’m worried Bennett’s going to do something dumb. Try to say something. He thinks I’m a scary asshole, he hasn’t seen my c— My Cliff.”

His mother’s lips press together, thinning out with some complex stir of feelings Cass is too exhausted and puked out to be able to piece together. “He knows?”

“I went and told Sammy,” Cass says. “Their little girl heard on accident and told him, I guess.”

His mother’s face brightens a bit at the mention of her grandchild, a kid who apparently loves her cookies and likes to play with dolls. Bonnie Reynolds had always wanted a daughter, had been pretty heartbroken when she found out something like fifteen years too late that she never got one. Sammy’s a great daughter-in-law, Cass is sure, and Suzie herself is the entire cherry ice cream fudge sundae on the top of the take.

“It’s not her fault,” she says.

“Oh, ma, God no, I know that. There’s gonna come a day when Bean says some shit like that, I know it. Kid takes after me at all, they’re gonna go to school and say the whole F-word to a teacher for telling them they can’t color their flower with purple polka dots.”

His mother muffles a laugh into her hand at that, clearly reflecting on her own memories of report cards filled with all the vitriol Cass had dreamed up to say.

“But it is Bennett’s fault,” he adds, immediately deflating her short-lived good mood. “Don’t tell me not to be angry at him, ma. This is one thing he ain’t gonna be able to charm his way out of, and you can’t make me let him.”

“I know that,” she says, patting his knee and standing to leave the room, but it’s clear she doesn’t. Not entirely.

When the door clicks shut behind her, Cass is gripped by the familiar desire to pick something up and throw it hard enough to break. The plate with an unasked for dinner, maybe. He doesn’t act on it, it would scare his mom and piss off his dad and he’d have a mess to clean up after the fact. He doesn’t even scream, just buries his face in his knees and lets the bubble of rage pop and flood his chest with loneliness when he hears her footsteps finally fade into the rest of the house.

He didn’t write to her or anyone else until Captain Unger made him do it.

 _“Makes you look like an odd man out, Terhi. You good with that?”_ he’d said, watching Cass toss a ball up and down and up and down and up and down from his bunk while all his teammates passed paper and pens around after dinner to write home to their wives and mothers.

 _“Sure,”_ Cass had shrugged. _“I’m used to it, Captain.”_

Most people would have left it at that, but Captain Unger had frowned at that, shook his head, chucked a pen in Cass’ direction and (maybe not so) accidentally hitting him in the face with it.

_“Think of it as a team building exercise. The less odd out you are, the better you’re going to work with your fellow soldiers. And writing your feelings might make you less of a pill, hmm?”_

Cass had decided, in that moment, that he didn’t like Captain Unger at all.

He hadn’t sent the first letter, or the second, or the third, or the forth. They’d all sounded like meaningless crap back then. Sitting down with his peers, though, had in fact made them open up to him, ask him what he was going to tell them. Who was he writing to, where’d he come from, what was it like growing up, what made him join? Cass had given those all meaningless answers, too.

But it had made him feel less like the odd man out, for the first time in a long time. That meant Captain Unger had been right, and that made Cass like him even less.

Now, he’s struck by the urge to write to Cliff.

He stands, stretching until his back pops the way he likes it to after sleeping, and sidles over to his desk.

The notebook he normally writes to Cliff in has a layer of paper strips right under the cover where he’s torn paper out at the perforation, and he takes a moment to pick them all off, rolling them into a ball and chucking them into the soiled garbage. He’ll have to take that out in the morning.

 _Dear Captain,_ he writes on the first line in the top margin. Under it he adds, _I miss you._

Then he stops. He’s got no intention of sending this. What’s the fucking point of it, then? What’s the point of scratching out words nobody else is going to read, right? Cliff’s getting the letters he does, but doesn’t have the time or resources to respond, and yet he still sends them every fucking week and they’re all full of the same dumb platitudes that he filled the ones he sent to his parents.

What’s the point of any of this?

Tears build up in his eyes and he abandons his attempts at writing neatly enough for some nonexistent pair of eyes to make heads or tails of it, scrawling yet another line lower: _Everything’s the same here, which basically means all the shitty stuff that made me leave in the first place._

Yet lower: _My best friend Sammy is still cool. I went to visit her after dinner with Ben & Jack, met her little girl. She’s five, which means they had her after I signed up. My asshole brother basically told her I didn’t exist. I guess I got him back though because I told Sammy and word got around._

And lower: _Now he and my parents know I’m pregnant, and if Ben runs his dumb mouth which he will that means Jack’s gonna know soon too and then all four of them are gonna get to disapprove. They all think the worst of you and I don’t want you to meet them._

 _I wouldn’t mind_ _if_ _you met Sammy, though. She’ll probably tell you to not be a jerk, but that’s it. Maybe she’ll be willing to be the witness at the ceremony._ _I met her in high school when we ended up in the same math class and…_

By the time Cass is done spilling his guts, jumping from topic to topic as it crosses his mind, the urge to cry or scream or break things is almost totally obliterated, leaving tired exhaustion in its wake. He’ll have to deal with Bennett at some point, probably sooner than he’d like. He’ll have to deal with Jackson, too, when the news is inevitably broken to him. He’ll probably have to offer an apology to his mother, at least, for unplugging the phone out of the wall the way he did if nothing else.

He glances regretfully at the plate on the nightstand.

The food she brought up for him is long cold, and he halfheartedly picks at it, shoving bits of vegetable and meat into his mouth until the thought of swallowing anything else becomes worryingly nauseating.

Then he rolls himself into a ball, under the covers this time, and tries to hold out hope for seeing Cliff again soon, or at least getting another letter before his leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think or tap the kudos if you're interested in seeing more.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cass tells Jackson a secret.

Jackson knows by the next morning.

Cass comes downstairs, still in yesterday’s clothes, with the empty plate in one hand and its previous contents in the garbage bag he’d puked in in the other, to see his brother sitting in the living room. He’s sitting much like he did when they got together for dinner, one foot propped onto the opposite knee, holding a coffee cup with one hand.

“Morning,” he greets Cass, and there’s a storm brewing under his eyes.

“Ben told you, huh,” Cass says, because he doesn’t have the time or the patience for small talk.

“He did,” Jackson replies, tone guarded.

“Well you’re gonna have to wait if you wanna chew me out, because I’m taking a shower and breakfast before I take any visitors, y’got that?”

He doesn’t wait for a response. He breezes out of the back door to dispose of the bag, dropping the plate off in the kitchen sink first. Then he makes good on his promise, thumping back up the stairs to wash the grime and the gunk of feelings off of himself, managing to stretch his soak for all of nine minutes before he can’t take running the water any longer.

He shaves, brushes his teeth, and takes his time picking out something comfortable and baggy from his wardrobe. The less Jackson can see of his waistline when he inevitably goes looking for a stomach on the planes of his abdomen, the better. The less anybody can see of his body, the better.

He disappointed to see Jackson still there when he comes down the stairs to get himself something to eat.

It must show on his face, because Jackson lets a single corner of his mouth bend with that kind of oldest sibling smug that Cass has never been able to climb past. Yet, it doesn’t bother him as much as it used to—the Captain played the long game pretending he wasn’t irritated by Cass’ needling, and he was able to surmount that.

“I took the day off. Or the morning, if you’re willing to sit down and talk with me like a grownup.”

In lieu of a response, Cass goes back into the kitchen.

He washes the dirty plate, drops it in the drying rack, and starts himself on some gravy, eggs, and toast.

He’s beat the eggs and poured them in a pan to cook on medium-low heat and has himself a roux going when Jackson finally gets bored sitting on the couch by himself and comes to lean on the doorway to watch Cass work.

Cass tosses a suspicious glance over his shoulder.

“The fuck you want?”

Jackson shrugs a single shoulder and takes a noisy slurp of coffee, not loud enough to be called out as obnoxious but still loud enough to set Cass’ teeth on edge.

He scowls to himself and reaches for the milk, carefully pouring enough to cover the bottom of the pan. Not eating dinner yesterday was probably the right move then, but right now his body (and presumably Bean, as well) is kicking him over it, demanding something heavy to make up for the slight.

“Momma give you that recipe, too?” Jackson interrupts.

“No,” Cass says sharply, but it does remind him to eyeball the pan before deciding to sprinkle a little extra pepper into it. The eggs are starting to bubble at the edges and he reaches over to shift them, fluffy curds of yolk and white forming under the spatula.

“You practicin’ for when you’re a momma, huh, Cass?”

Cass grits his teeth at the way the words sneak between his ribs, chewing him open as efficiently as any bullet or blade.

“Sure, I’m practicin’ to be a _daddy_ ,” he says. “Husband, too.”

Jackson snorts into his coffee, but if he’s reading the sound right without turning to look and see, it’s one of surprise rather than derision. After all, Bennett only knew what Suzie had repeated, not any of the things he’d personally told Sammy, and their mother’s probably still upset enough by the subject to not want to open it up.

“A husband? Really?”

Bingo, Cass was right. Take that, Jack.

His roux’s melted into the milk, and as it starts bubbling he reaches for the breadbox where there’s a fresh loaf waiting to be cut into toast. He eyes the thickness of the slices against the slots in the toaster, piecing some out for himself.

“Sure,” Cass said. “Already told ma, he’ll be here in… shit, what’s the date? Yeah, like, seven weeks.”

“You sure he’s gonna give enough of a shit to actually come back for you?” Jackson asks, a knife in his gut. “C’mon, Cass, don’t be naive. Lord knows you were the closest, most convenient pu—”

“He’s responded to my letters,” Cass snips, trying not to let Jackson’s tough love get to him. Maybe his brother’d once been able to convince him that his no-nonsense approach to shit like this came from a place of caring, but that attitude is still scar tissue on the inside of his chest. “Be easier to just wash his hair of me and ignore ‘em, right?”

That’s what he’s been holding on to for the several days, at least. The insecurities from before that are starting to whisper in his ear again, taking on tones in Jackson’s voice, and Bennett’s and ma’s and dad’s.

Jackson doesn’t have a response for that, at least.

The toaster spits it out just how Cass likes, on the edge of being burnt and not quite there yet, and he plates it alongside his eggs. The gravy is thick now, and he pours it onto the rest of his food with a self-satisfied grunt. It’s not perfect, but he’ll only get better with practice.

He pointedly doesn’t look at his brother as he goes to take a seat. If only that made Jackson get a fucking clue instead of following him and taking the chair opposite.

“I’m just trying to protect you,” he says, and Cass barks out a laugh, making crumbs from his toast fly.

“I’m a grownup, now,” Cass says, “just like you so helpfully pointed out earlier, Jack. And in case you didn’t realize, I’m not even your li’l fuckin’ sister anymore. You can take that protective older brother instinct and shove it, and maybe put your nose back in your own business while you’re at it.”

Jackson grimaces.

“Army put a mouth on you, didn’t it?”

That’s… that’s the perfect opportunity to scandalize Jackson. Oh, god, he shouldn’t—but he wants to, Cass wants to take it so bad. He’s almost definitely sure to regret it, but when does the littlest of three _ever_ get such a golden chance?

“Actually,” Cass says, staring straight at Jackson so he doesn’t miss a second of this, “the Captain had a better use for my mouth when I ran it too much.”

Jackson, as predicted, goes through all five stages of grief at once.

First, his face turns bright red, blood rising to the surface of the cheeks and the bridge of his nose and the tips of his ears and even in the hollow of his throat. His eyes get wide and he sits straight in his chair, banging his fist on the surface of the table, though it’s in surprise rather than anger.

He turns to the side in a bid to catch his breath, coughs, and… giggles.

Fuck, that _was_ a giggle, wasn’t it? Like a girl being presented with a bundle of roses wrapped in tissue paper and being asked to prom.

“That’s… shit, Cass,” Jackson says, and finally crumbles into quiet laughter.

Cass doesn’t respond, just cheerfully waits for it to blow up in his face as he pops a bite of egg and gravy into his mouth and smacks as he chews, a punctuating flag on his victory.

Jackson shakes his head, reaching up to rub at his face, as if he can rub the redness away from it. Cass is surprised he’s laughing at all, but it makes sense that the guys who are most straight-laced at home let off the steam by cussing at their jobs. Jackson’s the one who probably still attends church regularly, but Cass knows what the trade off for that is, when no ladies or kids are around to hear the way he talks. Even Hill had his vices.

“You really are a grownup, aintcha?” he asks, turning his eyes up again finally. To Cass’ surprise, the quiet anger stirring in his face has dissipated, a rain shower rather than a lightning storm.

Cass shrugs with one shoulder and helps himself to another bite of toast, before it can get soggy.

“Sure, Jack. I was gone for a long time. Shit happens to people when they leave… they don’t just, like. Stop being real people just cuz you can’t see ‘em anymore.”

Jack frowns, something seeming to click in his head, and it’s when he speaks that Cass realizes he’s just made a really, really big mistake.

“Did you say ‘captain’?”

Cass blanches, recounting the last five minutes in his head. Then he shoves the entire slice of toast into his mouth and lets himself struggle to chew, because there’s no good way to answer that question. Fuck, if Jackson decides to air that particular piece of dirty laundry before he’s ready to air it, things are gonna go sour really fast. He’s no Bennett, but his particular sense of honor often outweighed anything else, consequences be damned.

When he can’t grind the mush in his mouth any further, he reaches for his fork, only to have Jackson reach across the table and snatch his wrist in a work-roughened grip.

“Cass!”

“Fuck, ow! Let go! Yes, I fuckin’ said ‘captain,’ let go!”

Jackson does not let go. “Is that the father, or did you let yourself get passed around like a—”

“Do not,” Cass barks, “under any circumstance, finish that fucking question.” His tone, like a droplet of water, reflects the very place he got it: muddy boots, straight lines, polished steel, puddles and mud, the smell of sweat and blood, order and chaos in equal measure. “Yes, my captain’s my kid’s dad. No, I didn’t fuck anybody else but him, and it wouldn’t be your business even if I did. You got that?”

Jackson works that over in his head for a second, examining it from all angles, before he speaks again. His fingers slowly unclamp from around Cass’ wrist, and Cass rubs the pale spots in the shape of his fingers.

“You didn’t report him?”

“He didn’t tell me to shut up and think of America, if that’s what you’re asking,” Cass says. “I pulled his pigtails, he read between the lines, he asked if I wanted him. I said yes.”

“But that’s still—”

“Yeah, I know,” Cass grunts. “That’s exactly why I need you to keep your mouth shut, okay? Jackson, you still with me? This conversation needs to stay between us.”

Jackson’s mouth tightens at that, fingers curling into fists on his own side of the table now. Cass wants to do something, anything, to indicate that the conversation is over and that he’s not open to argue about it. But he’s rooted to his chair, and his appetite has been drowned under trepidation. God, he’s so fucking stupid.

“I can’t do that, Cass,” Jackson says, and plows on when Cass makes a loud groaning noise of displeasure. “That’s— he shouldn’t have even _asked_ that. If you were having inappropriate feelings toward your superior officer—”

“Shut up for a sec,” Cass bites out, anger starting to boil over. Inappropriate feelings this, don’t talk to boys that.

Jackson ignores him. “It was his responsibility to get you under someone else, or to _ignore it_ , or to turn you down. You ask me, Cass, this guy stinks of creep all over.”

It’s Cass’ turn to pound his fist on the table, and he does it loud enough to make the silverware jump, a clatter of metal and ceramic that startles even Jackson. His li’l sister Cass never stood up to him, never did this shit, would go up to her room and scream and cry far enough away for everybody to ignore it. Anger and tantrums weren’t for ladies.

“ _Don’t fuckin’ talk about my Captain like that!_ ” he snarls, a supercell in his own right. “For your goddamn information, and you might wanna check your short term memory for this, _I didn’t ask._ I made my bed, I’m lyin’ in it, and just cuz the other side of it’s cold right now doesn’t mean it’s gonna be forever!”

“Cass…”

“You care about me? You wanna _protect_ me? You keep your fuckin’ mouth shut. Gimme a chance to do the right thing, Jack. Give _him_ a chance to do the right thing. You start meddlin’ right now, it could fuck up our ability to provide for our kid. Don’t do that to me, and don’t do that to my baby.”

Jackson, who was already opening his mouth to say something else, promptly snaps it shut at that. That’s something he hadn’t considered.

“I’m not sure I can—”

“You can and you should,” Cass says, starts pushing his food around his plate. This isn’t how he saw this conversation going, and he can already see his plans for the day slipping away, turning into a nap on the couch. Unbidden, he adds, “You’re too much like dad.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jackson asks, and doesn’t get a response.

Before things started going sideways as his family picked up hints that he wasn’t normal and it wasn’t going away, Bennett had been Cass’ favorite brother, the only one who Cass would stand to let chaperone him at his parents’ behest when he wanted to hang out in town with Sammy.

Jackson would have been too ungainly, too intrusive, a killjoy all around when he saw his mother’s beloved dress-up doll and heir apparent getting into mischief.

 _“It’s too bad she doesn’t have anyone to pass her traditions on to,”_ he’d said once, when Cass made it clear that he didn’t care about learning to do his hair when he was just going to cut it all off one day anyway, or being taught quilting from her scraps bin, or… or making that _fucking_ lasagna.

He must think that this is Cass finally coming around. They all must. No wonder they’re all so frustrated by the way he’s acting. As if any phase would have ever lasted this long.

Cass pinches the bridge of his nose as hard as he can. Won’t do to cry right now.

“I won’t tell anyone,” his brother finally says, eyes pointed away with begrudgement. “But it’s for my niece, not you or your… your _captain._ ” He spits the word out like a nasty piece of gristle.

A scowl tries to tug the corners of Cass’ lips downward, but that’s the best he’s going to get. He didn’t ask for Jackson to keep his secret with any kind of enthusiasm.

“Bean’s a boy,” he decides at that moment. Not because he really thinks so, not on any kind of intuition, just because he wants to argue with his brother right now.

“You’re calling your kid _Bean?_ ”

“That’s how big he is!” Cass says, slumping in his seat. He has to resist the urge to cross his arms over his chest. It would look too petulant. “More or less! Last time I checked! It’s early, I don’t have a name yet.”

Jackson rolls his eyes.

“You should pick one for _her_ soon. You can’t go around calling her Bean.”

“I can call him Bean if I want to,” Cass says, finally scooping up a cold forkful of eggs and gravy and stuffing it into his mouth. Conversation over.

Well, that means his whole family knows. The immediate circle does, at least. His parents and brothers have all made their opinions crystal fucking clear. Sammy’s being the best, as usual, and although he doesn’t really know Jackson’s wife or their kids, there’s no way his older brother would have been able to take a day off without explaining to her what was going on.

“How do you figure Bean’s a girl, anyway?” Cass finally asks.

Jackson smirks a little. “Well, something’s got to soak up all that estrogen you ain’t usin’.”

After he cleans the dregs of Cass’ breakfast off of his shirt the best he can in the kitchen sink, Jackson shares a terse goodbye with Cass, followed by a slightly less terse promise to come visit soon. Then he’s out the door, and Cass is left with the weight that someone out there in the world is carrying his secret, can only hope that it’s kept wrapped tight until Cass is ready to let it go.

Cass goes upstairs to confess his sins in the notebook.

-

_Dear Captain,_

_I fucked up. I accidentally dropped it on Jackson that you were my superior officer. I’m sure you’d think it was hilarious if it wasn’t a threat to your position, because I embarrassed him by telling him how often you put me on my knees in your tent whenever I started getting too mouthy._

_How often do you get to pull a fast one on your older brother like that?_

_Shit. I guess I don’t know if you’ve got any siblings. I’ll have to ask. If you’ve got any family, you’ll probably want them at the actual ceremony, if we have one. I don’t know if you’re as embarrassed about your family as I am about mine, because you never talked about them. I guess there wasn’t any time to, even if you did._

_It’s going to be weird, raising this kid with someone I don’t know outside of the military. Shit like that really changes the priorities of what you bother to know about a guy. We’re gonna have to get to know each other while Bean’s growing up._

_Maybe it’ll help to make a list? Questions and shit I want to ask you about yourself. Maybe while you’re on leave. It sounds stupid when I think about it, making a list of stuff to ask my husband after we’ve gotten married already. But if I don’t, it wont magically make the info appear in my head, so it’s gotta be better than nothing, right?_

_Right. Okay. Here goes._

_1\. do you have any family? what are they like?_

_2\. what’s your favorite food besides army slop?_

_3\. what did you want to do before you joined? what about now?_

_4\. do you like cold weather or hot weather more?_

_5\. favorite color?_

_6\. favorite music?_

_7\. do you have a best friend? what are they like?_

Cass stares at the last line for a long moment, considering his earlier conversation with Jackson. It’s true he can’t call his kid Bean forever, at least not on legal documents. That would lead to vicious bullying starting in grade one when kids stop being blobby and start getting mean to each other.

_Okay, here’s another list:_

_ Ideas to Name Our Kid _

_1\. Samuel_

When he can’t think of any other names to put on the list, he makes sure to write **DO NOT SEND** with a scrawl of underscores beneath it in the top right of the page, just so he doesn’t tear out the wrong sheet when it comes time to write the real thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna so honest, I love writing this story a lot. I haven't really sat down and written something like this for years, and it's fun to mess around and figure out who all my characters are as I'm going. Posting it is an entirely different beast. I haven't posted my writing online since 2015, and I cannot stop second guessing everything I've put on the page once it's up for other people to see. I don't know if the pacing or characterization make sense or if I'm gonna hate it in five years.
> 
> I do hope those of you that are taking the time to read and leaving hits and kudos know you're all really appreciated. It helps to make me feel less like I'm howling into the void.
> 
> Also, if you're curious, the title comes from 3 Kids Home by Velveteen.

**Author's Note:**

> There's more if anyone's even remotely interested lmfao. The intent would be to flesh it out as a character study and then shift it into a ship fic, but I also went ahead and picked a nice place to end it if there's no interest otherwise.


End file.
